Friday Open Thread

Posted on June 22, 2018 by rikyrah

TGIF, Everyone. I’m off for Canada. Be back next week! Stay safe, take care of yourself and loved ones.

BS Sunday: ​The Remarkable Comeback of Foreigner’s Mick Jones

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68 Responses to Friday Open Thread

  8. Liza says:
    June 22, 2018 at 4:41 pm

    For God’s sake, why? So many assholes in this country, they keep finding new ways to be assholes.
    https://twitter.com/ajplus/status/1010247767904489473

    Reply
  9. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 3:02 pm

    National Enquirer consulted Cohen, Trump on 2016 stories: WaPo

    Rachel Maddow shares reporting from the Washington Post that the National Enquirer sent stories about Donald Trump to Michael Cohen for approval before publishing and took suggestions for stories about Hillary Clinton from Trump.
    Jun.21.2018

    Reply
  10. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 3:00 pm

    Multiple states sue Trump admin to stop family separation policy

    Rachel Maddow reports on a lawsuit filed by Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson and joined by several other states to stop Donald Trump’s migrant family separation policy.
    Jun.21.2018

    Reply
  11. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 2:59 pm

    Kids removed from parents by Trump policy suffer lasting trauma

    Dr. Marsha Griffin, pediatrician and co-chair of The American Academy of Pediatrics Special Interest Group on Immigrant Health, talks with Rachel Maddow about the lasting developmental damage done to children when they’re taken away from their parents.

    Reply
  12. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 2:58 pm

    Senators push back on DoD over JAGs assigned to immigration cases

    Rachel Maddow reports on a letter sent to Defense Secretary Mattis from Senators Gillibrand, Leahy, and Ernst, asking him to reconsider sending JAGs to border states to help the DoJ prosecute immigration cases.

    Reply
  13. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 2:57 pm

    Conscientious objectors to Trump border policy get free legal aid

    Jason Rittereiser, whose law firm has offered free legal representation federal employees who refuse to carry out Donald Trump’s migrant family separation policy, talks with Rachel Maddow about response to the offer both from other lawyers wanting to help and at least five government employees who have reached out for help.

    Reply
  14. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 2:56 pm

    As HHS tent city filled with kids, Azar left for college reunion

    Rachel Maddow reports that HHS Secretary Alex Azar, whose purview includes the facilities housing separated migrant kids whose parents can’t find them, skipped out for his college reunion on the day after his agency build a tent city in Texas to house migrant children taken from their parents.

    Reply
  16. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 2:50 pm

    Jeff Sessions Now Says the Administration “Never Really Intended” to Separate Families. Liar Liar Liar!
    By BEN MATHIS-LILLEY

    JUNE 21, 20185:35 PM

    Attorney general Jeff Sessions tried to do some cleanup on the administration’s unpopular and maybe-disavowed family separation policy in a Thursday interview with Christian broadcaster CBN. Here’s one of the things he said:

    It hasn’t been good and the American people don’t like the idea that we are separating families. We never really intended to do that. What we intended was to make sure that adults who bring children into the country are charged with the crime that they have committed.

    Nope!

    • In March 2017, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked White House chief of staff John Kelly, who was then running the Department of Homeland Security, if DHS was considering a policy that would “separate the children from their moms and dads” at the border. Kelly said that DHS was “considering exactly that” in order to deter other potential undocumented crossings.

    • In May 2018, Kelly was asked during an NPR interview if he supported the now-imminent plan to prosecute all border-crossers in such a way that would separate children from their parents. He answered affirmatively, noting that “the laws are the laws” and “a big name of the game is deterrence.” His interviewer responded that “family separation stands as a pretty tough deterrent,” to which Kelly then said that it would indeed “be a tough deterrent” and would create “a much faster turnaround on asylum seekers.”

    • On a media call in June, a Health and Human Services official reiterated the administration expected and hoped that family separation would result in a deterrence effect.

    And, of course, there was the time on May 7 when attorney general Jeff Sessions literally stood in front of a fence at the California-Mexico border and pretended to talk directly to potential undocumented border-crossers in a speech:

    I have put in place a “zero tolerance” policy for illegal entry on our Southwest border. If you cross this border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you. It’s that simple. If you smuggle illegal aliens across our border, then we will prosecute you. If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law.

    Incidentally, according to DHS’ own numbers, groups that include suspected smugglers make up 0.61 percent of the family units apprehended at the border. (The separation policy Sessions was announcing, of course, applied to all family units.)

    In summary, a politician is being dishonest!

    Reply
  22. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 1:05 pm

    ICE shutters helpful family management program amid budget cuts
    A successful program helping displaced immigrant families with a fear of returning to their home countries is shut down. The Trump administration has other priorities for the fiscal budget.
    https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2017/0609/ICE-shutters-helpful-family-management-program-amid-budget-cuts

    Reply
  23. Liza says:
    June 22, 2018 at 12:57 pm

    I was thinking about this too. I was 5 yrs old when I started first grade. My mother was a stay-at-home mom and this was our first separation. She takes me in for my first day of school and I immediately started wailing when she left. Then, to add to my woes, my first grade teacher (a young nun) was losing her mind. Seriously. She tormented us for several months and they finally removed her and sent her away at Christmas break.

    What these kids are going through is much, much worse. Someone better pay for this.

    https://twitter.com/KieseLaymon/status/1010178950281261056

    Reply
  27. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 11:07 am

    First time illegal entry into the United States is a misdemeanor.

    Lying on or omitting materially relevant information from your SF86 (as Jared Kushner did multiple times by his own admission) is a felony.

    Guess which one’s getting prosecuted?

    — Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 21, 2018

    Reply
  28. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 11:06 am

    The inescapable truth: Trump, his regime, and much of his base view these brown children and parents only as animals and future gang members. They can’t understand the kerfuffle about the sub-human treatment immigrants are getting.

    — Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) June 21, 2018

    Reply
  29. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 11:06 am

    Here’s the story we just published. It’s clear to me that there is no plan to reunify these families. https://t.co/IH25kUARfL

    — Kevin Sieff (@ksieff) June 22, 2018

    Reply
  30. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 11:06 am

    If only there was some alternative to family detention. Wait: There is one! A successful case management pilot program that the Trump admin shut down.

    Check out this statistic: “99 percent of participants successfully attended their court appearances and ICE check-ins.”

    — Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 20, 2018

    Reply
  31. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 11:05 am

    “The business of housing, transporting and watching over migrant children detained along the southwest border is not a multimillion-dollar business.

    It’s a billion-dollar one.”https://t.co/NuPM52wGHN

    — Summer Brennan (@summerbrennan) June 22, 2018

    Reply
  32. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 11:05 am

    Minh-Ha T. Pham @minh81
    “RAICES needs volunteer translators: “who speak Meso-American indigenous languages (eg, zapotec, nahua, ma’am, quich’e, maya, mixe, mixteco–not Spanish). Don’t need to be in Texas, or even in the US. They can translate remotely.” volunteer@raicestexas.org

    — mary lou (@mlhoffman) June 22, 2018

    Reply
  33. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 11:03 am

    Texas Judge: “I can’t understand this. If someone at the jail takes your wallet, they give you a receipt. They take your kids, and you get nothing? Not even a slip of paper?” https://t.co/oo7oLl2L2w pic.twitter.com/HaKcnMQpkU

    — Alex Kantrowitz (@Kantrowitz) June 21, 2018

    Reply
  34. SouthernGirl2 says:
    June 22, 2018 at 10:33 am

    #Parkland kids, y’all. This is how you be about it!

    https://twitter.com/davidhogg111/status/1010180821230260224

    Reply
  37. Liza says:
    June 22, 2018 at 9:44 am

    Actually, it can be a combination of both. And I think that is exactly what it is.
    https://twitter.com/AC360/status/1009958062491222016

    Reply
  39. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 9:34 am

    Trump urges Republican lawmakers to drop immigration effort
    By Doina Chiacu

    29 mins ago

    WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump urged Republican lawmakers on Friday to drop their efforts to pass comprehensive immigration legislation until after the November elections, which he hoped would bring more party members into Congress.

    Trump, faced with a public outcry over his policy that separated children from their migrant parents at the U.S. border with Mexico, tried to refocus the immigration debate on Congress in a series of early posts on Twitter.

    Despite Republican control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the party’s slim 51-49 majority in the latter chamber makes some Democratic support necessary to pass most legislation.

    “Elect more Republicans in November and we will pass the finest, fairest and most comprehensive Immigration Bills anywhere in the world,” Trump said on Twitter. “Republicans should stop wasting their time on Immigration until after we elect more Senators and Congressmen/women in November. Dems are just playing games, have no intention of doing anything to solves this decades old problem. We can pass great legislation after the Red Wave!” he said.

    Reply
  40. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 9:18 am

    The president believes that stories of migrant children being ripped away from their parents are “phony stories of sadness and grief.” pic.twitter.com/qdQMKl0pEs

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 22, 2018

    Reply
  41. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 9:08 am

    When the Russians turned out to have nothing on Hillary, one the Trump Tower meeting participants told me, “The light just went out in his eyes. He was totally disinterested.” My profile of the President’s eldest son and namesake: https://t.co/DlfPNMiTzY— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) June 21, 2018

    Reply
  42. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 9:07 am

    Young Trumpies Hit D.C.… And D.C. hits them right back.

    excerpt:
    There’s always tension when administrations change in Washington; a new cast of characters arrives, and an influx of appointees, lobbyists and hangers-on have to stake out their own ground. But the era of Donald Trump is—as in so many respects—different.

    Washington is a hipper city now than it’s ever been, a place where staffers, especially young staffers who want to drink and date and live normal millennial lives, would want to live. The problem is, if you work for Trump, it’s also more hostile territory than it’s ever been. The president campaigned against the very idea of “Washington,” slammed cities as “war zones” and ran a racially charged campaign whose coded messages weren’t lost on the diverse, Democratic-leaning residents of D.C.’s buzzing neighborhoods. The bar-filled areas that became synonymous with young Washington in the Obama era—Columbia Heights, Shaw, U Street, H Street—are full of anti-Trump T-shirts and street art. Even old Republican redoubts like Spring Valley in upper Northwest aren’t very Trump-friendly.

    So, what’s a young Trumpie to do? Many still do live in D.C., and to understand what their lives here are like, we interviewed more than 30 millennial staffers from the Trump White House and across the administration, both current and former (many have already left), as well as a smattering of their friends and outside observers. Nearly all spoke on the condition of anonymity, to talk candidly about their personal lives or because they were not authorized by their bosses to comment. They told us their horror stories about being heckled on the street and their struggles to get a date. Unlike their predecessors, who made their mark on the city’s social scene, they largely keep to themselves, more likely to hop between intimate apartment gatherings than to hit the town. “Instead of folks looking outward,” explains one young White House aide, “more folks look inward.”

    Reply
  53. SouthernGirl2 says:
    June 22, 2018 at 8:29 am

    Have a great time, Ametia. Stay safe and send me pics. I wanna see what Canada looks like.

    Reply
  57. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 8:26 am

    Have a great trip 🙌🙌

    Reply
  58. rikyrah says:
    June 22, 2018 at 8:26 am

    Good Morning Everyone 😄😄 😄

    Reply
  59. Ametia says:
    June 22, 2018 at 8:20 am

    Word of the Day : June 22, 2018

    Notorious play
    adjective noh-TOR-ee-us

    Definition: generally known and talked of; especially : widely and unfavorably known

    https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/notorious-2018-06-22?pronunciation&lang=en_us&dir=n&file=notori02&utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=wotd&utm_content=pron

    Reply

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